One of Jeremy Corbyn’s rising stars today backed RMT strikes on one of London’s busiest railways but claimed there would be fewer walk-outs under Labour’s workplace revolution.
Shadow employment rights secretary Laura Pidcock argued that industrial action for most of December on South Western Railway was a “very last resort”.
The strikes, over the future role of guards on trains, will cause misery for many travellers in the run-up to Christmas and into the New Year.
In an interview with the Evening Standard, Ms Pidcock said: “I would support those workers because what else does a worker have other than the ability, if all else fails and it really is a very last resort, to withdraw their labour.
“I understand that it causes huge disruption to people’s lives, I’m not saying that I don’t have sympathy for that, of course I do.”
She argued that Labour’s plans would lead to fewer strikes as, she believes, there would be “more resolution by negotiation” between bosses and unions.
If Labour wins the general election on December 12, the ardent Corbynite, 32, is set to head a ministry of employment rights and the party’s proposed workplace reforms, outlined in the most Left-wing manifesto for decades which includes far more sectoral collective bargaining.
“That is where you are organising each sector of the economy and making sure workers within that sector fall under a national agreement which determines their pay, terms of condition, and all aspects of their working life,” Ms
Pidcock said. A workers’ protection agency — working closely with unions which will have new powers — would “enforce” employees’ rights, such as on flexible hours and pay.
Ms Pidcock, who is seeking to retain the North West Durham seat, admitted that she saw politics through a “class lens” and is part of Labour’s drive to mobilise millions of people, many of them students, to register to vote by the November 26 deadline.
“I don’t think we should be judgmental about the rate of registration because … there is no, or little, political education going on in schools — of course, I don’t mean party political,” she said.
